Scranton throwing party for final 'Office'

Friday

May 3, 2013 at 8:29 AMMay 3, 2013 at 8:33 AM

MICHAEL SADOWSKI

When Scranton held its 2007 convention for fans of “The Office,” honoring the show that uses the city as its home base, organizer Michele Dempsey said the hardest part was gathering cast members to appear.

As the city gets ready to hold its wrap party for “The Office” on Saturday, getting the principal cast members together turned out to be the easiest part.

“The word got around with the cast,” Dempsey said. “Everyone that came last time went back and told everyone else what a great time they had.”

Now the wrap party is legitimately star-studded. Nearly every member of the cast is scheduled to attend, including Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute, and John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer, who play husband and wife Jim and Pam Halpert.

The cast and crew, which includes series creator Greg Daniels, will take part in a question-and-answer session with fans at the University of Scranton at 11 a.m., a parade and street fair in the downtown at 2 p.m. and a final wrap party at PNC Field in Moosic at 7 p.m.

The parade and fair are open to the public, and fans can buy tickets to the wrap party and question-and-answer events.

Tickets and more information about the event are available at theofficewrapparty.com.

Dempsey said organizers said early in the week that about 5,000 people were expected to attend the event, with tickets still on sale through Saturday.

“Scranton has been honored to be the home of 'The Office' for the last nine years,” she said. “But it's the fans who are really excited about this. There are going to be a lot of people coming from out of town for this.”

Dempsey, an architect in the city who came up with the idea for a convention originally, said the wrap party will be a celebration of the show. The mockumentary sitcom has aired on NBC for nine seasons but will end its wildly successful run on May 16.

Stroudsburg High School graduate Daniel Chun served as a writer and producer for part of the show's run as well. The show often mentioned Pocono attractions, including Mount Airy and the towns of Stroudsburg and Mount Pocono.

Dempsey said the final send-off was a no-brainer for a city that gladly hosted fictional “Office” companies Dunder Mifflin, and now Sabre. And she said the show took that relationship very seriously.

“The city was treated like another character in the show,” she said. “The show was always in contact with the city. They didn't just use a restaurant on the show, they used a Scranton restaurant.”